As I read more and more books about the current food systems of North America, I am beginning to see how complex the problem is. This is not going to be easy to fix! I'm currently reading Free For All: Fixing School Food in America by Janet Poppendieck which talks about the problems in the food systems of schools. I chose to read this book as one of my seminal readings because I want to base my thesis project on redesigning the food systems in schools in a way that will allow children to learn the differences between healthy foods and unhealthy foods and the reasons behind them.
It hit me how difficult of a problem fixing school systems are while reading the first chapter of the book. My theory was that if we made it a requirement for children to take at least one class on cooking/health/nutrition (whatever that may be called), and integrated them into the food system at the school (whether that was through planning the lunch meals for the week or actually help preparing or cooking the food) that the children would learn what it means to eat REAL food and how to make it themselves while experiencing the pride that goes along with being part of the whole system.
In this book, Janet talks about an experience she had while volunteering at a typical elementary and high school, in which she observed the different dimensions of the food systems in progress. From the introduction of the book, I looked at all the problems with school food systems which I have organized into four groups.
1. Nutritional Standards
The government has implemented nutritional standards in government supported schools in which the schools are contracted to supply a specific number of servings for each food group for each student that receives free or reduced lunch prices. The goal of these nutritional standards were to make sure that each child was getting all their nutrients with a balanced meal everyday. If schools do not follow this policy with children that get free or reduced lunch prices, the schools will not get the reimbursed from the government to pay for the meals. However, schools have been adjusting their menus to fit the likes and desires of the children. For example, instead of supplying cooked carrots as a vegetable serving, they are serving french fries instead. Also, instead of serving whole milk for the children to drink, the schools are overstocking with chocolate milk. They do this because they know from experience that children will not eat the cooked carrots or drink the whole milk because they don’t like to. And if any food is returned to the kitchen, lets say the cooked carrots, then the government will not reimburse the school for each meal that is brought back. Tricky, huh?!
2. Cutting Even
School food programs are struggling to make any profit or even break even. There are many reasons for this. One reason is the demand for school lunches to be as cheap as possible. Since people do not want to pay for meals, the school has to adjust their menus to have foods that can be sold for really cheap, loosing the ability to raise prices to make any profit. Another reason is the amount of labour that goes into the food preparation and serving. Not only do the schools need to pay for the food, they also need to pay the staff that helps make the system possible. Lastly, the demand for school lunches is unpredictable and unreliable. Since buying school lunch is not mandatory in all schools, the food staff have to estimate there budget. If they make too much food and not many students buy the food, then the kitchen looses money. Also, more and more children are bringing their own lunches to school or skipping lunch all together. This creates another problem, but that can be discussed at a different time.
Because food systems in schools are having a hear time making profit, they must try to sell more food to the students. The best way, and the only way without making school lunch mandatory, is to sell foods that the students like and want. So almost all schools these days have vending machines that are filled with sugary processed snacks and some schools are adding “junk food” to their kitchens in hopes that the students will buy more. With the school that Janet discusses in the first chapter, they offer a separate which supplies nachos, salted pretzels, candy bars, soda, and other types of junk food for the students to buy at lunchtime. In addition, they have pizza as an option for the main meal everyday. They do this all to boost profit.
At the same time, the school makes more profit if they buy foods that are processed. Therefore, hardly any of the food preparation involves cutting vegetables or cooking anything from scratch. The cafeteria in the book only made a fresh salad from scratch everyday, but almost none of the students actually choice it for one of their options. Instead, it is eaten by staff members and the kitchen workers. So all their pizza, french fries, vegetables, you name it is all frozen and delivered in bags and boxes.
3. Eating Habits
In the book, Janet discusses how difficult it is to feed children healthy food if they are not eating those foods at home. Kids like to eat what they know. So, for school lunches, cafeteria's want the children to eat and eat as healthy as possible. That's why they don't refuse to offer french fries or canned peaches in syrup as a fruit/vegetable options; it's the only way to supply a fruit or vegetable that they will eat. That's also why they offer processed foods. In the school in the book, kids would not try anything that they had never seen or heard of before. So instead of eating a big bowl of stir fry vegetables and rice, they choose to eat pizza and nachos.
I think that this problem can be solve if you get the kids involved in the food by either having them help cook the food or having them plan the meals before hand. That way, they get some pride in contributing to the food and are therefore more likely to try it. I don't know if there is any other way of convincing them to try new foods. But if we can't fix the food being offered at home, we need to find a way to show the kids that there are healthier options in the world.
4. Peer Pressure/Culture Norms
Another problem was that children eat foods that will help them fit in to the society/community. I remember growing up and learning that if you liked broccoli, you were uncool. Therefore, I convinced myself that if I wanted to fit in, I would never eat broccoli in front of my peers at school. The same thing happens in public schools. If it is considered cooler to eat pizza or french fries then it is to eat fresh vegetables, the kids will choose the "cooler" options so that they can fit in with their peers.
Also, saving money is a recent concern for young children these days. When I was in elementary school, I never worried about saving as much money as possible to be able to afford desirable things. Instead, I would ask my parents or work it off to get allowance. However, I guess it is getting more common amongst elementary students to not eat lunch in order to save the money that they would be spending on the meal and spend it on other material things that would make them "cooler." This was such a crazy concept to me when I first heard this. I couldn't believe that kids that young worry about money! But obviously this needs to change!
So these are the main problems with school food systems. I'm anxious to see Janet's solution to all these problem because honestly, I can't see any easy solution.
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